EP#72 - 2026 GASGAS EC 300 GP Tested!

We managed to get our hands on a 2026 GASGAS EC 300 GP, which is the up-spec model in the GASGAS two-stroke range, to see if it is worth the extra coin. We stuck the mic under the nose of ADB Editor Mitch Lees and Dirtbike Burrito's Jeremy Cowley as soon as they hopped off the bike to see what they thought. Here's there raw feedback. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the ADV podcast where we talk all things dirt with your host, Mitch Lee. We have done a day testing the Gas Gas EC300 GP. This is that up spec model that we mentioned earlier. Um, Jez, how do you rate this bike compared with the other gases that you've ridden? It gets a few different things, different rear gearing than the previous models. Obviously, the seat might have more grip for some of the nasty. We did a lot of hard enduro today. What give us an overall feel for this bike?

SPEAKER_01 0:31

I like it. I don't love it, but I really like it. I think it's a great bike. It's I feel this is we've talked about it before. I think this is more the six-day version of the Gasser, um, because it does have a lot of go-fast parts on it, which uh which are great, and um you really get your money out of it. But um, yeah, in the hard endure stuff, it was still fun. We we had uh we tried it on different things as well, like different hills, and I think I was stuck down there for a little while because I was just trying third gear, second gear, first gear, trying to figure out exactly where this bike fits. And look, I mean it the top guys and girls can make bike fit anything, yeah. But from our perspective, I don't know that you'd you'd buy it if you rake the hard endure. Yeah, enduro though, far out. This is a little weapon like on the on the stuff we've done here, like the flat track, the grass track stuff, this thing flies absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Uh why not as good a hard endure? Is that a gearing thing? So it's a 1345 or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Maybe it was just really aggressive. Like if when we were coming up some of them hills, it was a great bike, and we only had it for what, yeah, three hours, four hours. So I think if you learned the clutch a lot, it'd be better. Um it was um it was still fun in the tight single stuff, but I found it was it just did not give me the adequate power to go through stuff. It kind of got caught up a little bit, and then it was it's just a bit more of a struggle to find the sweet spot, that friction point on the clutch, and matching it with the power. It just was a little bit over the place. As I said, more time on the bike, and we'd be able to do it. I think it's it's easy to do, but you know, for the money, yeah, it's it's hard. Because this is this is expensive.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

This one's 19375, so it's it's 200 bucks more than a KDM 300 exe a stock version. Now you're getting more on it, you get the map switch, and like we mentioned before, floating front brake, all that kind of stuff. But it is another 200 bucks more, and it's what's that, two or three grand more than a stock gasser.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

And that and that's for me, that's where because now this doesn't come with a pipe guard, doesn't come with disc guards, yeah. It doesn't come with the stuff that you need to add on for hard enduro. Yeah, I mean, everything I mean, you've got your your snake for your brake and things like that, which are very enduro, but you know, as I said, the front and rear brakes, no coverage, yeah, the front part, no coverage. I mean, you're still probably looking at I don't know, a thousand dollars just to get this thing dressed up to then be able to do a hard enduro where you could probably race it in duro enduro one and spend the money and it kind of gets the same price.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Yeah, uh yeah, so straight out of the crate it'd be more comfortable in Enduro than it would be hard enduro. That's probably an indication, guys, of the gearing where the gearing fits, the way the motor, it is more punchy, it's more punchy, yeah. So it can spin up a little more.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

It's way better than the five 300 um the Kato to race. If you're gonna race anything, I would race this. This is a great bike, super punchy, really aggressive. Yeah, but um, I think for the average punter who just wanted to go out and race on a weekend, um, the the other bikes would be fine too.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Uh this comes with a Michelin six days extreme rear tire. That's a great tire. So it's so nice to see a bike come out and stock trim with a good tyre. We really liked it. We had a lot of off-camba stuff today, it was wet in bits and pieces, and it got lots of traction, far more than the standard gas gas comes out with the FIM rated.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

But this is also with the tube as well, just a standard tube. So we even with only going down to what do we put it down to 12? 12 psi, yeah. It's still a lot of a lot of traction on this hills too.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Yeah. Uh the explore fork in previous years, we've had you know issues with it kind of diving a little bit. We went down a hill. I actually rode it down this long hill, it doesn't dive anymore, it kind of holds up nicely. We dropped into some holes where it kind of spring and rebound back out, doesn't do any of that, so the fork's far more improved. Um, and the front brake about two or three years ago, in this exact same trackie, we ran a shootout and we almost died with the gas-gas front brake, it just spongy. The front brake on this coming all the way down some of these big hills, I thought was awesome too. So a little the front end setup on this has improved significantly despite hanging on to the explorer and not going to the exact, which is what uh the other KDM and Husband have done. Um, all right, so there you go. So we think this is probably better suited to what you do with a six-day KDM. So I think racing through the trees, single track, that kind of thing, absolutely the way it's geared, the way that the motor distributes the power now, it's just that little bit more aggressive. So if you're gonna try and race hard in Jiro and you're gonna get tired and fatigued and you want to just lag real slow, it just doesn't do it as good as we found the new 2026 KDM did it with this different gearing.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah, I mean I said if you're gonna race off-roads or anything along lines, I mean in think things like that, this is the bike to get. It's phenomenal, it's well balanced. The chassis works really well too. We didn't get to do anything really fast, but when we did two couple sections, obviously it's a new chassis, so it's stiff, but it's still kind of deflected off rocks really well because of the forks went with the forks all the way through too to kind of help us with the tighter stuff down there. But in the far stuff, the chassis really held on. The pegs are in a good position as well, kind of relevant to where your bars are, so it gives you a really nice feel. So when you do go do techie stuff, you do feel for me anyway. I mean you know the same height, I felt a little cramped, but when I was going through the far stuff here, it really feels more alive and active.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Yep. Yeah, definitely. Um, and obviously this runs the different braking, this is the and the and the clutches, the brack tech stuff. I I th it was pretty good. I I'd say close to the Brembo gear, like we might be 10% off.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Yeah, for me I didn't get the test it enough to know if you know doing two, three hour motos is it gonna fade or where it has to go. I don't know. But in the small tight stuff downhills, because I mean we have to also say because it's a two-stroke, the compression braking on these sucks anyway, so it's all about the rear brake. Yeah, it is, yeah, it's all about the front brake. I mean, we didn't do many up and hill downhills. I mean, this one here is probably the longest we had, it never faded, didn't feel like anything. Um, and it was a lot easier, I found, than the KDM to feather this brake and move it around. I don't know whether it was just a tire, yeah, because that one is a bit more skatey and sketchy. This one really held its line going down some of the hills.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Okay, that's it, that's all we got for you for the gas gas 300 GP. That's the EC300 GP, it's that up spec model. Uh, probably more of the fast kind of racer bike than maybe a hard enduro bike, but still could do it quite well. Comes with the map switch, so the you know, the aggressive map we found was quite aggressive. The soft map we're gonna go and do some more testing on now. Uh, but yeah, stay tuned, and uh, we're gonna do some more of the KDM and the gas gas in the Husfana range coming up.